Monday

Aug 12, 2019 at 8:00 PMAug 13, 2019 at 5:51 PM

WEYMOUTH —South Weymouth residents want traffic detoured through Union Point during an upcoming closure of a stretch of Route 18, but officials say the development’s roads are private and couldn’t handle the influx of traffic.

Christopher Evasius, an assistant district construction engineer with the state, and other officials went before several dozen residents at the Pond Plain Improvement Association Hall on Monday with information about road detours that will take place during a closure of the Route 18 bridge from Aug. 23 to 26.

Traffic will be diverted off a stretch of Route 18 and onto Pond Street during the weekend of Aug. 23 as part of a $60 million project that includes widening a 4-mile stretch of the road. The bridge replacement accounts for $20 million of the project cost.

The road is scheduled to close from 9 p.m. Friday, Aug. 23, until 4 a.m. Monday, Aug. 26.

Several residents said Pond Street is a neighborhood street that will be taxed by the closure, and asked the state to send traffic through the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station instead.

But Evasius said the state can’t direct traffic into the development, since the roads are not public and therefore have insurance implications.

“We’re not telling people what way they can go, but we can’t detour people onto private property,” he said.

The Route 18 project includes rebuilding the road — used by about 40,000 vehicles a day — so it can accommodate two lanes of traffic in each direction from Middle Street in Weymouth, just west of Route 3, to Route 139 in Abington. Portions of the road already have two lanes in each direction, including the section in front of South Shore Hospital.

The partial demolition of the existing bridge over the railroad tracks will take place during the first weekend closure. Evasius said crews will remove about 12 feet of the existing bridge to make space for the new bridge.

. Evasius said at least eight police details will be on site during the entire time of the detour, and said they will help residents get out of side streets onto Pond Street.

Traffic will be detoured onto Pond Street again for two weekends in 2021.

This will allow crews to build a new bridge alongside the existing 82-year-old span over the MBTA commuter rail tracks, demolish the old bridge and slide the new span into place.

District 6 Councilor Michael Smart said he asked Town Solicitor Joseph Callanan to look into the detour through Union Point for the additional closures in 2021.

One lane of traffic in each direction will be maintained through most of the work.

Crews from Verizon, Comcast and National Grid are continuing to relocate utilities throughout the corridor. Road widening will begin once all utility poles are moved, starting in Weymouth. Crews will begin widening the road in Abington in 2020.

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